The potential establishment of Wagner militia camps in Belarus continues to stir alarm. Poland will send 500 police officers, including from its counterterrorism unit, to its border with Belarus. Ukrainian commanders met to hear a report on the operational situation on the northern border, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Saturday. Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private jet reportedly landed in Minsk on Saturday from St. Petersburg, according to the Institute for the Study of War, citing public flight tracking data. Satellite images show hundreds of large tents set up over the past week at a previously abandoned base in Asipovichy, about 150 miles north of the Ukrainian border, the Associated Press reported.
Ukrainian forces advanced toward Bakhmut overnight, a military spokesman said, as the eastern city — mostly leveled during months of fighting - once again because a locus of hostilities. Russia is likely pulling forces from elsewhere toward Bakhmut, ISW said. Ukrainian air defense said it downed eight Shahed drones and three Kalibr missiles launched by Russia overnight aimed at various parts of the country.
The Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has had a “corrosive” effect on President Vladimir Putin’s regime and Russian society, William Burns, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, said on Saturday. “Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership,” the top US spy said in a lecture at Britain’s Ditchley Foundation, adding that it creates “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” for US intelligence.
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